I was talking to Ordinary Misfit about gradients using different polishes (i.e. glitter, creme and jelly) and she mentioned a syrup mani. When I googled it, the first result that caught my eye was a syrup mani by Chalkboard Nails. If you’re wondering what a syrup mani is, it is basically a gradient done with jelly polishes using the polish brush instead of a sponge. When I read the post I realized I had all the polishes necessary to recreate it. I loved it so much it moved to the top of my mani to do list.

I started off with my usual base coat of Tip Top Miraculous Results to protect my natural nails. I then painted 3 coats of China Glaze You Drive Me Coconuts on all of my nails. I waited a few minutes for that to dry a bit and then used China Glaze Are You Jelly? to paint 3/4 of my nails. I went in for another coat of Are You Jelly? on half of each nail and finally another coat on the tip of my nails. It looked crap. It wasn’t at all like a nice smooth sponged gradient. I decided to top coat to try and ‘blend’ the polishes. No luck. It still looked atrocious. I remembered that Chalkboard Nails had used the black and white glitter to disguise the fact that the gradient wasn’t as smooth as a sponged gradient, so I tried it on one nail. SUCCESS! It made the gradient look perfectly blended and rounded the look off nicely. I proceeded to paint my L’Oreal Top Coat Confetti onto all of my nails. My Top Coat Confetti dries matte, so I did another top coat to make it shiny. The result:

I was totally in love with my nails for the entire time I wore this mani. They were so beautiful and distracting that I stopped midway through a sentence while staring at them and never got to finish what I was saying. I got compliments from everyone who spotted them. Even my hairdresser who is fully aware of my nail hobby, but never specifically comments on whichever mani I’m wearing when I go in, took the time to say how nice this one was. I didn’t want to take them off and even contemplated redoing the same mani when they chipped. I loved it THAT much. I will definitely be doing these again.